During the many years since we began to support missionaries our church has learned to be more sensitive, gained experience, and become wiser in understanding how we should serve in a multi-cultural world. Additionally, with the growth of the Gospel in many nations, improved education, transportation and communication, those roles which are appropriate for international missionaries have often changed.
• One of the greatest changes has been that we have learned to partner with and learn from people in their own culture who themselves lead the process of their spiritual and social development rather than giving our well-intentioned but sometimes inappropriate ready-made solutions to them.
• What we have learned and the priorities we have established for partnering with others to further the Kingdom of God were applied to the missionaries supported by the Bible Church in 2007 and 2008. That evaluation process resulted in the recommendation in December 2008 that funding not be continued for some missionaries.
• Throughout the discussion since the proposed changes were made in December 2008, two main differences in perspective centered on:
1) Whether or not application of the new priorities to currently-supported missionaries should occur (that is, currently-supported long-term missionaries receive funding until they cease seeking funding) and
2) Assuming a transition would indeed occur, the length of time over which a transitional ending of funding should occur (such as 6 months, 12 months, 4 years)
• The most significant change in the revised priorities was the deletion of the priority item that expatriates not primarily serve other expatriates. It was the consensus of the lay leadership that the values this priority was meant to endorse are better described in local integration described in priority #2 and promoting local leadership described in priority #5
